"If such communications existed between the two nations, how comes it that the camel, the national type-animal of Arabia, should never have found his way, into the painted records of the Egyptians, that careful and observant people? It is a most singular fact, that the camel never has yet been found pourtrayed upon any of the paintings or sculptures, extant in the Nile valley.* The native habitat of the horse was in high latitudes, thousands of miles distant from the spot in which he most appears to have been cultured: the indigenous site of the camel was in the sandy wastes of the children of Ishmael, immediately adjoining the land of Egypt. Yet are its inhabitants supposed to have transmitted the equine animal to the masters of the camel, and with all their curiosity, science and observation to have asked for, or admitted of, no return in kind? We can only conclude that the horse was brought by the original colonists of the Nile valley, a race so singularly coincident in customs and practices with the Hindus, from Central Asia, at a period beyond our power to calculate upon any date now in our possession; that another tribe or race must, about the same time, have carried the same animal into Arabia, where the nature of the country suggested, as in the case of Egypt, the manner of his use, and the purposes to which he should be applied. The one people, amid wide and open plains, and scanty pastures, rode, as became a nomad race; the other, in a low, narrow, deep, and plenteous land, pampered their steeds in stables, and yoked them to a car, a vehicle so light that two powerful horses could easily drag themselves and it, through the fat loan of the muddy country in which a mounted man would sink to his horse's locks at every stride." It was not till about two years or more after the above was written that I received, in the German, the three first books of Chevalier Bunsen's Egypt's Place in the World's History; and it may be judged with what satisfaction I read the peroration of his first book, in which he italicises the one great result of his unparalleled research, coincident with my own humble inference. "On a comparative view, we can have no hesitation in saying, that the investigation into mythology, as far as it has gone, determines upon a fact not less important as respects the world's history, as certainly * Gibbon (Misc. Works) quotes Diodorus Siculus 6. III. c. 44 to prove that the camel was extant in his day as a wild animal in Arabia.-H. T. and to the same intent, as did the dissection of (Coptic) philology. The knowledge of God like the knowledge of language among the Egyptians has its roots in ancient Asia, in the ancient Armeno-Caucasian territory. That this land, defined more nearly, is one of primitive Aram, and connected with the primitive kingdom in Babel,-and that the hieroglyphics of Egypt are actually nought else in the image of the world's history, than a still extant peculiarity of the old-time of Aramite-Armenian mankind (according with the same law whereby Iceland exhibits the still extant heathen Norway of the 8th century) -is an historical fact which we will here but assert, proposing to lay the proof of it before our readers in the fourth and fifth book. "If we turn from this point to its opposite, the historical period of Egypt, our investigation into the Egyptic origines, will already have made it clear, that the kingdom of Menes itself, rests upon a venerable substructure of several centuries of the Nile valley, rich with the spirit of intellect. Conformably with it must Menes have constituted the kingdom of Egypt, in that he brought together, and united the separate elements of life of Egypt's provinces. Thus do these origins establish true, the assertion made at the opening of this book, that Menes created the historical knowledge of the Egyptians, as did Karlmagne that of the German peoples.' ""* Here then we have research supporting inference with such commanding weight of authority, as to encourage the resumption of ideas still more daring, than those even which suggested an eastern origin to the inhabitants of ancient Egypt, from a stock allied to the Hindu. I have not the fourth and fifth books of Chev. Bunsen's work, indeed I know not if they be published, in spite of enquiry made; but, I do not think it inexpedient to set forth once again, and, on authority corroborative of the Egyptian tomb-records, that the ancient Egyptians, an eastern people who brought into the Nile-valley the germ of civilization, * I have seen, and indeed possess,a translation of the first Vol. of Chev. Bunsen's Egypt by Charles Cottrell, Esq. M. A. (London 1848); but it is in a style of periphrasis, and not without omissions: I have therefore ventured on the humble verity of as literal a rendering as I could master. Should Mr. Cottrell have translated from a later edition than that of my copy (Hamburgh, 1845, octavo), which has suffered alteration, (and from the variations I should suppose so) part of my remarks do not apply.-H. T. there perfected it, and then carried back their arms and arts as conquerors, both before and after their temporary subjection by the Hyksos, into the countries immediately civilized and peopled, through which they had, as nomads, passed on their way to the Nile. It is remarkable that up to the time of the Ptolemies, the character of every monument, and of every vestige of the ancient Egyptian people retains its Egyptian type, that 'impress of locality' which so much struck Heeren; and as this type has from the earliest, been unmixed by analogy with that of any other nation, save the Hindu, the necessary conclusion is that the Egyptians in their migration towards the Nile traversed virgin lands, as yet unsettled and uninhabited. According to the great law which seems to regulate the progress of people from land to land, that progression is impulsive, the foremost tribe being forced forward by that which directly infringes upon it. This may happen in three ways;-by the strong hand, driving a race of previous settlers from their homes to the masterful advantage of the aggressor, who has perhaps himself been forced upon them;-or by the two supposed cases of incompatibility of co-existence in races whose capacities for accepting civilization materially differ; viz. either when the foremost race being of peaceful habits, industrious and quiescent, becomes dissatified with the neighbourhood of a people, which, though not unfriendly, is inapt to mix or to deal with its denizens on equal terms;—or where the converse occurs, the foremost nation being slothful, inert, uninventive, and capable of only a semisavage independence, refusing and ultimately withdrawing from the offence of the civilization superincumbent over it, in the institutions of the nation that has immediately followed it up.* It is probable then that the shepherds, i. e. the Nomad races, had been "an abomination unto the Egyptians" from times anterior to their settlement in the Nile-valley,—at a period how remote the newly-established chrono * The disappearance of the pure Celtic races, in our isles before Saxon influences is a melancholy extant example of this latter phenomenon in the history of mankind in process of centuries, the pure Celt recedes, while the Saxon or Teuton advances, and the mixed race formed intermediately remains stationary. The recession and gradual extinction of aboriginal American, Australian, and some South-African races before a mixed Saxo-Teutonic,-and as respects the Spaniard, a mixed Goto-Semitic race, offer analogous examples with variation of circumstances according to relative grades of civilization.-H. T. logy of Chev. Bunsen shall, before I go much further, testify: but in the mean time I must go back to the vestiges which remain to us of one of those great races after their settlement as a civilized people, in order to trace the character of Egyptian influence over them. 66 I may here premise, that when writing on this subject in 1846, I alluded to the researches of Signor Botta (commenced in 1843) at Khorsabad, pointing out their immense importance, and stating that we may look to receive from this quarter information of the most interesting and instructive character, as soon as the exploration of these ruins shall have been undertaken on an extensive scale. It may readily be conceived, that at such a time as this, vague speculation upon the character of the former tenants of these ancient realms, "would not only be valueless but even impertinent ;" and Layard's Nineveh that now (1849) is before me, speaks confirmation, welcome and eloquent, of the justice of the opinion. This able man and delightful writer, who has driven by sheer sense, skill, and enterprise a new adit into the dark hill of history, has furnished us in one of his discoveries, with evidence of the adoption of Egyptian habits, and of the existence of an Egyptianised race in works of art (ivory carved figures with hieroglyphics and symbols of Egyptian sovereignty found at Nimroud) having in form and style of art a purely Egyptian character, though certain peculiarities would seem to mark the work of a foreign, perhaps an Assyrian artist;* the like were found at Kyomjik, another of the mighty mounds * It is most interesting to compare in Mr. Dennis' Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (2 Vols. 8vo. London, 1848), an archæological discovery of precisely similar character, simultaneously published with the Ninevehan one, as regards Egyptian imitative art, occurring in a very ancient Etruscan sepulchre at Vulci. This tomb, called by the discoverers Grotto d' Iside (Cit. and Cem. Vol. 1st. p. 419) is the burial place of two ladies of rank, "whose effigies are still in existence, though pearly three thousand years may have elapsed since their decease." Of the articles, vases, unguent-pots, and alabastra, in the tomb, "all have a strong Egyptian or oriental character; but with the exception of those evidently imported from the banks of the Nile, they are Etruscan imitations of Egyptian art, with the native stamp more or less strongly marked." Of a particular vase, Mr. Dennis further observes" So Egyptian-like are the chariots, and the procession of females, painted on this vase that the general observer would take it for an importation: yet the learned have pronounced it Egyptian only in character, and native in execution, though of most archaic style, and early date." A necropolis of the C of ruins. But at Nimroud, a still stranger revelation was at hand. At a |